CHAPTER

12

Even among the emotive roar and howl of the city, even while lying and relaxing on the bed in his room, Flinx’s casually roaming Talent was able to pick out the pair of desperately focused feelings coming toward him. He was able to do so for precisely that reason: because they were coming toward him. Years of running, of living in a state of constant wariness, had sensitized him to feelings that were aimed in his direction. Furthermore, he recognized both of them. They belonged, unless he was very wrong, to the two youths he had once conversed with on the roof of a run-down apartment complex in another part of the city.

He was not pleased. He had told the youth—what was his name?—Subar—that work beckoned, and had made his good-byes. Now the boy, and his more estimable female friend, were entering the lobby of the hotel where Flinx had taken a small suite. Their emotional states were—unsettled.

He could simply ignore them, he knew. Refuse to respond to their request for access to his floor, pretend he was not in the room. Check out and move to another residence, another city even, to avoid them. Only one thing stopped him. As it so often did, his damnable curiosity got in the way, just as it had on that morning days ago when he had intervened to rescue the youth from the attention of the authorities.

Might as well see what had the two of them so churned up inside, he told himself resignedly. It wasn’t as if his already too-long sojourn on Visaria was otherwise inundating him with admirable examples of his own species. Dealing with whatever was firing the emotions of his unexpected visitors would no doubt only take up a few minutes of his time, and he had planned to leave Malandere and return to the Teacher in another day or two anyway.

He could not see the expression on Subar’s face when he acknowledged the youth’s arrival, nor hear him breathe “He’s still here!” to Ashile. But he could sense the relief in the boy’s feelings.

That the situation was serious and not simply a ploy intended to let Subar gain access to him again was made plain by the haste with which the youth and his lady friend practically dashed into the outer room of Flinx’s suite.

“Thank you.” Subar collapsed into the nearest chair, which was hard-pressed to orthopedically accommodate so swift a collapse. “Thank you, thank you, many tvarin times over.” A more self-controlled Ashile lowered herself decorously onto the arm of the single chair. She let her right arm slip around behind Subar but, Flinx noted, made no contact with him.

Someone else did, however. Spreading her vibrantly colored wings, Pip rose from her resting place on the other side of the room and hummed over to land on the girl’s lap. She started slightly, but held her seat. Timidly, she reached down with her left hand and began stroking the flying snake behind the scaly head. Sensing his pet’s complete ease with the girl, Flinx permitted himself to relax a little more.

Subar was not relaxed, however. His emotions were a roiling, conflicted storm. Anxiety, fear, expectation, hope, desperation, panic: all were present, tumbling and folding over and through one another like batter in a bowl.

His tone bordering on irritation, Flinx wasted no time on casual banter. “I told you I had work to do. This better be important.”

“I…” Now that he actually found himself in the older youth’s presence, it struck Subar with sudden force that he had made no preparations for this moment. He had been completely consumed with just finding Flinx again. Now that he had done so he was unsure how to begin. One thing he felt he needed to do if he was going to secure the offworlder’s aid was to minimize as much as possible his own responsibility for the current difficult circumstances.

Ashile, on the other hand, had no such qualms. While Subar was deciding what to say and how best to say it, she jumped right in.

“Subar’s gotten himself in a right tconic mess. He and his ‘friends’ scrimmed a storage facility run by local illegals. They got founded out. Two of them got deaded.” She eyed Subar. “With extreme invention, apparently.”

“Chaloni,” he mumbled, “and Dirran. You met them.”

Flinx remembered. “Go on,” he responded guardedly. There was no duplicity in Subar’s confession.

Ashile continued when Subar could not. “Three of his other friends were taken. Two girls and one other guy.” She looked down at the young man slumped in the chair. “Subar insists on trying to rescue them. Why, I don’t know. They’ve never done anything for him that I can see. But I can’t talk him out of it. Being his real friend, I agreed to accompany him this far. At least.” She looked up at Flinx. “He seems to think you might be able to do something. I don’t see why he should involve you—”

A shocked Subar looked up at her. “Ash!”

“—since you’re just a visitor here. But you helped him once before, and he believes you might help him again. All I can tell you is that if I were you, I wouldn’t get involved.” She looked down at the youth in the chair. “He told me in too much detail what these people did to Chaloni and Dirran. I don’t know what your profession is, Mr. Flinx, but I’m sure you’ve never been involved in anything like this.”

Flinx nearly choked on the acrid laugh he managed to suppress. “Uh, no, I’m sure you’re right, Ashile. Like I told Subar, I’m only a student, and this—this kind of conflict is all pretty new to me.”

She eyed him evenly, without embarrassment. “You’re one of those professional students who just keeps studying and never graduates as anything, right?” she said accusingly.

He had to look away lest she see his expression. “Something like that. Actually, I am working toward graduating in the near future. It’s a goal I hope I can achieve. Unlike some, failure is not an option for me.”

Her initial scorn turned to sympathy. “Can’t disappoint your parents, huh?” In her lap, Pip squirmed uncomfortably.

Flinx carefully pondered a response before finally replying, “Actually, the entire Commonwealth is depending on me, though its inhabitants don’t know it.”

She stared at him for a moment, then made a face. “I was just asking. You don’t have to get sarcastic about it.”

“Will you help?” Subar had had enough of this courteous byplay. They were wasting time. He thought of what her captors might be doing to Zezula. And to Missi and Sallow Behdul, too, of course. “I can’t take this to the authorities.”

“Because you and your friends invited this reprisal by committing an illicit act yourselves,” Flinx commented.

“It’s not only that,” Subar told him. “This is Malandere. This is Visaria. It’s not Earth, it’s not Hivehom. The line between those who enforce the law and those who break it isn’t so clear-cut here. I could turn myself in to the authorities for protection and wind up in the same sludge pit as if I’d been carried off by the people who’ve taken Zezula and Missi and Sallow Behdul.”

Flinx leaned back into the lounge that cradled him, sighed, and crossed his arms over his chest. “Aside from the question of whether I’d help you or not, what makes you think that I could do anything if I did?”

On firmer ground now, Subar sat up straight and leaned forward. “You rescued me from the two thranx and the police. I saw what you did to Chaloni and the others when we were up in our priv place. You can do—things. I don’t know how, but I know that you can. The more I’m around you, the more I get the feeling that you’re not just an ordinary visitor. You might be a ‘student’ like you say—but a student of what I’d sure like to know.” He repeated what he had said before, with as much emphasis as he could muster. “Will you help?”

Boredom. Boredom and curiosity. Separately they had sometimes gotten him in trouble. Together, they invariably did.

“All right,” he told the youth. “I’ll see if I can do anything. Though exactly what, I have no idea.”

“Thank you,” Subar replied simply. His voice was even, controlled. But the feelings he was holding in still threatened to overwhelm him.

What he did not know, and what the tall offworlder seated opposite refrained from telling him, was that Flinx had agreed to lend his assistance not to aid Subar, but because Ashile’s love for him was as transparent and pure and unqualified as it was unspoken, and was exactly the kind of empathetic humanity Flinx had despaired of finding in a place like Malandere.

 

One thing that escapes the attention of law-abiding citizens on any human-settled planet is that gossip infects the underworld as thoroughly as it does their own. The criminal substructure has its own Shell, through which rumor, innuendo, and news is filtered separate and apart from the tridee media that informs society at large. For those who wish to do so, accessing this flow of illicit information is no more difficult that wading into a river of sewage. The quandary is that the consequences are often the same.

Though Subar’s street contacts tended to be younger than the average professional lawbreaker, they were in many ways no less competent. It took him only a couple of days to find out who was holding his friends. This because the word had been disseminated that the unpleasant people in question were still looking for one more thief—him. Anyone with knowledge of his whereabouts was offered a Shell connection to contact, with a substantial reward promised for information leading to his eventual capture. Knowing who held his friends, however, did not automatically suggest a means of liberating them.

“We need guns,” Subar was muttering as he and Ashile strode down the busy street alongside Flinx. “And maybe explosives. Blow the entrance and sneak Zez and the others out the back.” He coughed. Combined with the thick, particulate-laden air of the city, tension was causing his breathing to come in short, anxious puffs.

“No,” Flinx told him quietly. “No guns. No explosives.” He did not explain that the one thing he personally had to avoid at all costs was the drawing of attention to himself and to his presence on Visaria. The liberation of Subar’s friends had to be done quietly, or not at all. He already knew what he intended to do. Otherwise, he would not now be walking in their company.

Ignorant of his new friend’s need to maintain complete anonymity, a baffled Subar piped up, “Then how are we going to get inside?” Ashile’s expression, as well as her feelings, showed that she shared his confusion.

Looking down at them, Flinx smiled reassuringly. “We’ll knock.” He proceeded to detail the approach he had worked out. As he did so, Ashile wondered yet again why she hadn’t possessed enough sense to stay out of this completely.

“That’s the most sethet thing I’ve ever heard.” She was staring at him. “Who do you think you are? What do you think you are? Besides insane, I mean.”

“He’s not.” Unlike his friend, Subar was grinning broadly. Flinx’s strategy made sense. All it demanded was boldness, daring, and a willingness to place his life completely in the taller youth’s hands. “Wait, and you’ll see.” The near worshipful expression on his face as he looked back up at the offworlder, she noted, was exactly the same as the one he used to bestow on the deceased Chaloni. To her, it was not a good sign.

Flinx went over the final details of the tactics he had concocted as they rode public transport to the address specified by Subar’s contact. Perhaps not surprisingly, it was located in the same industrial zone as the storage facility Subar and his friends had boosted, though in another building some distance away. While still confident in the capabilities of his offworld friend, it was Subar’s nature to have second thoughts.

“What if the information I got is outdated, and Zezula and the others are no longer being held in the same place where you’re supposed to sell me?”

Ashile glared at him. “Now’s a fine time to think of that!”

Having anticipated the possibility, Flinx was not put off by the question. “Then we’ll just have to leave, and try to find another way to locate them. But I think the odds are pretty good. They’ve already viewed your ‘captured’ image via their own link. Knowing nothing about me, they’ve no reason to suspect I intend anything other than delivering you, as per agreement.”

Ashile refused to let the concern go. “If they don’t know you, why should they trust you?”

Flinx smiled at her. “It’s been my experience that people of this type believe that money trumps every other concern. Once we’re there and they ‘have’ Subar, it’s a possibility that they might decide to renege on their part of the deal and not pay me, to save the cred if they think they can get away with it. That’s the only kind of fight they’ll be prepared for. It doesn’t matter, because I’m not looking for pay and we’re all going to leave together.” He turned to Subar. “With your friends, if they’re there. That much I’ll be able to tell as soon as we’re near the building, before we even have to announce ourselves, much less go in.”

Genuine puzzlement fueled her response. “How are you going to do that?”

“Just trust me. I’ll be able to tell.” Given how frightened Subar’s friends must be, if they were still inside he shouldn’t have any trouble picking up their fear from outside the structure, no matter what kind of security it had in place.

Ashile was looking at him strangely now. Flinx did not have to read her emotions to know what she was thinking. She was wondering just what his undeclared capabilities might be. He offered what he hoped was a reassuring smile, and said nothing.

After disembarking from the transport, it was half an hour’s walk to the address they had been given. From outside the featureless, windowless structure, Flinx quickly perceived that Subar’s friends were indeed being held within. He did not have to strain his abilities to verify their presence. The interior of the building reeked with adolescent fear. He then proceeded to remind his younger companions one last time that whatever ensued once they were inside, they needed to stick to the scenario he had laid out for them. Working carefully, he secured their wrists behind their backs. When that was done they made their way to the entrance. It was located off a wide serviceway fronting the rear of the structure, away from the main street.

Having agreed previously upon a delivery time, those inside and in charge were expecting him. Security at the building was tight and seemed to impress Subar and Ashile. To Flinx, who had at times successfully penetrated the security surrounding powerful companies as well as the Terran Shell itself, the measures in place were proficient but hardly awe inspiring. Insofar as he could tell, they were each and every one of them designed to prevent unauthorized personnel from entering the building. Nothing he saw suggested that any measures were in place to prevent someone inside from getting out.

He felt confident, ready to gamble that everything he had carefully worked out with Subar and Ashile would go exactly according to plan.

Detecting their approach, an inner door at the end of a dirty, undistinguished hallway opened to admit them. A very large blond man stood there. Coupled with the physical description of the individuals he had glimpsed inside the pod’s priv place that he had supplied earlier, Subar’s emotional response was all that was necessary for Flinx to identify the man. Broad and muscular, he was the one who had been in charge of the team responsible for the death of the youth’s friends and the abduction of the survivors.

For his part, the blond’s attention shifted speedily from Flinx to the downcast bound youngster standing in front of him. The big man did not smile. “Yeal, that’s him, the one we put out the word on. The last one. The slippery little feeker who gave us the slip on the rooftop.” His tone suggested that Subar was already dead. The man’s awareness then shifted curiously to the equally tightly bound Ashile standing dejectedly nearby. “Who’s the prebreed?”

“Friend of his.” Having spent time in the company of cold-blooded killers, merchants, emomen, and aliens, Flinx could mimic their posture and tone with little effort. “Was with the scrug when I picked him up. Got hysterical, so I thought I might as well twofold the package.” He looked away, eyeing a nude image crawling up a nearby wall, indicating that Ashile’s fate mattered not a whit to him one way or the other. “Won’t charge you for two. Could have done her there and been done with it, but thought maybe you could use her. You know, to help convince him to yammer.” He shrugged indifferently. “Or whatever. I like to leave a scene clean.”

“Good forethink.” Corsk grinned unpleasantly as he took a step back. “Hall scanners opt you clean. Not even a knife. Young, but smart.”

Flinx acknowledged the compliment with a slight nod and gave the arm-bound Subar a shove, sending him stumbling forward. Eyes on the floor, Ashile followed meekly. She did not have to feign the fear she was feeling. What if the offworld “friend” to whom Subar was trusting their lives had simply been playing a game with them and had all along intended to sell them to these terrible people? If so, it was far, far too late to do anything about it.

“I ain’t stupid,” Flinx growled. “Know you wouldn’t let me inside armed. Counting on you common-sensing that it’s better for your long-term rep to straight me the reward you verted via the Shell than it would be for you to cheap it out.”

“Still something of a gamble on your part,” Corsk relished pointing out, “coming here alone like this, with the goods in tow.” He clapped a friendly hand on Flinx’s back. Beneath the younger man’s shirt, something stirred in response to the impact. Corsk noticed it, of course, but since security had declared the tall visitor free of any weaponry, he merely filed the observation for future query.

This deep into the building, the emotive stink of pain and fear was ubiquitous. Subar’s friends must be very near, Flinx knew. Perhaps as close as the back room into which the big man was now leading them.

Flinx jerked a thumb in Subar’s direction. “You said something about this piece of crola being ‘the last one.’ I heard about the breakin. So you got the others, then? Too bad if so. Means no more opportunity for me to garner some more cred.”

“Sorry.” Corsk grinned at him, senior pro to the younger. “Yeal, we’ve got them all. Now. A couple already demised, a few still alive. They’ll stay so, along with this new one, until the master is satisfied he has the answers to all his questions.” The big man’s gaze met Flinx’s hard. “Nothing you need to concern yourself about.”

“Neal,” Flinx replied understandingly. “All I want is the cred boost due me.”

Corsk nodded, glanced back over his shoulder, and raised his voice. “Arad, ladies—all’s stret. You can come in.”

Opposing sections of wall slid silently aside. One alcove released a pair of hulking yet well-dressed women. Each held a sonic rifle nearly as tall as Subar. The other—the other revealed an alien with whom Flinx was unfamiliar. Tall, long-armed, high-eared, it stepped out of its recess and in one easy, continuous, flowing motion lowered the pistol it had been brandishing. Flinx had detected them all even before he had entered the room, but the surprise on Subar’s and Ashile’s faces was palpable. He was pleased that he had been able to perceive the alien’s feelings, confusing and jumbled as they were. With a nonhuman, he could never be sure. Had the creature’s emotions been closed to him, it would have thrown the entire plan into disarray.

Moving to a cabinet, one of the giantesses unsealed a drawer and took out a credmitter whose guts had been selectively and illegally modified. Corsk nodded at Flinx.

“You’ve delivered. Now it’s our turn. Gail?”

The giantess came forward. Holding the credmitter in one hand, she extended the other expectantly. She was waiting for Flinx’s credcard of choice, he knew, so she could first security-clear it and then transfer the verted reward to his specified account. Subar looked over at him, his face reflecting an expectation of a different kind. Next to him Ashile’s expression mimicked her feelings. Reflecting her earlier doubts, they were now clashing violently.

There was no time for stalling. It was time for Flinx to do something. Now that the moment of crisis had arrived, what, the increasingly anxious girl wondered, did the offworlder intend to do, confronted as he was by a seemingly impossible situation?

What Flinx did was close his eyes halfway. Corsk frowned uncertainly as his visitor failed to produce the necessary credcard. The Amazonian Gail tensed. So did her twin. The alien’s expression was unreadable. Significantly, however, he slid a liquid step backward while a six-fingered hand shifted slowly in the direction of a bandolier replete with a diversity of small weapons.

As he had done a number of times in the past several years, Flinx readied himself to emotionally project onto those surrounding him. Just as he had taken down Chaloni and his companions in the rooftop priv place, he prepared to flood selected minds around him with a wave of focused fright and vulnerability intended to reduce them to helpless, quivering lumps of terrified id. Practice had taught him how to focus his newfound ability so that, for example, he could spare Subar and Ashile from its effects. Beneath his baggy shirt, Pip stirred in expectation.

Frowning, Corsk gestured toward the movement. “You’ve got something alive in there. Not that it’s any of my business, but what—?”

Flinx pushed outward.

“—is it?” the big man finished.

Flinx opened his eyes all the way. Corsk was eyeing him expectantly. The Amazonian twins were staring at him. Off to the left, the alien’s limber fingers had coiled around one of several weapons attached to a diagonal chest strap, though the gun had not yet been removed.

Flinx blinked. Ignoring Corsk’s query, he strained anew. More forcefully this time. Once again, nothing happened. Subar’s expression now perfectly duplicated the growing look of alarm on Ashile’s face. And with good reason.

To his horror Flinx realized that his Talent, always intermittent, had chosen that moment to diminish on him. Practice and experience counted for nothing when his unique ability decided to go on vacation. It had chosen a particularly volatile moment to do so.

Remembering Corsk’s question, he tried to formulate a reply as he fumbled for the credcard he carried inside a secure pocket. “It’s a minidrag from Alaspin. Reptilian in appearance, but not cold-blooded. Opto example of xenoconvergent evolution.” Working at the seal on his pant pocket, his fingers were trembling. He could not recall the last time his fingers had trembled.

As he did so, he could not avoid feeling, if not projecting, emotions. With his thoughts racing several different ways at once, he momentarily forgot that there was another present who could also read, if not project, feelings.

Sensing her master’s distress, Pip stuck her head out of the neckline of his shirt, surveyed the physical situation as well as the rising emotional squalls that threatened to fill up the room, and decided to take action of her own. Her reaction instantly drew Flinx’s attention away from his own internal conflict.

“Pip, no!”

Launching into the air, wings spread, Pip darted toward the ceiling. Analyzing the potential dangers milling below, she instinctively began ranking them according to the degree of threat to her master that each presented. Whereas a human evaluating potential dangers would have looked to the presence and type of weapons, she read emotions in search of differing degrees of friendliness or hostility.

Taking another stride backward, tall ears thrust in the direction of the unexpected flying creature, the alien drew his weapon of choice. At almost the same time, the giantesses retreated and Corsk pulled a pulsepopper of his own. Ducking away from the sonorous hum being generated by the minidrag’s membranous pink-and-blue wings, the big man was simultaneously angry and uncomfortable.

“Call it off,” he growled warningly. “Get it back inside your shirt now, or I’ll fry it!”

Flinx raised both hands. The gesture was both entreaty and warning. “Don’t shoot! I’ll get her down, just don’t think hostile at her!” Looking ceilingward, he implored his companion. “Pip! Come down here—now!”

But Corsk wasn’t watching the flying snake anymore. His gaze had fallen and turned, to refocus on Flinx. For the first time, he seemed to see his tall young visitor in an entirely new light.

“Don’t ‘think hostile at her’? Why would that…?” In his business, analysis was something best left to the contemplative. He was paid not to analyze, but to react. Now he did so, bringing the muzzle of the pulsepopper up sharply.

His attention still concentrated on where Pip was hovering just beneath the ceiling, Flinx saw the man’s hand come up out of the corner of one eye. He knew what a pulsepopper could do. The tiny globe of plasma it discharged would incinerate whatever it came in contact with. He started to open his mouth to say something at the same time as Corsk’s finger slid forward on the trigger.

There was a brilliant flash of light, pure white and intense as a sun. He was not conscious when the sound of the concussion rolled through the room.

 

Time passed.

Flinx was relieved, but not especially surprised, when he came around. It meant that he was not dead, and that something besides the pistol’s plasma ejecta had rendered him insensible. Though still shaken and far from thinking entirely coherently, he had some idea of what might have happened. Because it had happened to him several times before.

On each occasion he had been on the verge of being killed, the difference between life and death a matter of seconds or less. Each time something, some unknown part of him, had risen intuitively to his defense. That it had to do with his still-blossoming abilities there was no doubt, but as to its exact nature, he had no idea. It was different from the kind of collective surge he and the Tar-Aiym Guardian Peot had used recently to defeat the Vom at Repler.

Whatever its true nature, it was evident that it involved generating energy, displacing matter, or both. Most recently, it had flared forth unbidden to save him from an assassination attempt on the primitive world of Arrawd. Being rendered comatose each time it happened prevented him from examining or analyzing it in any way. He never knew exactly what took place, or how. He was privy only to the consequences.

In this instance, as he picked himself up off the floor of the room, these involved the unexpected protrusion from the ceiling of three pairs of feet—three female, one male. The remainder of the bodies that were attached to the dangling feet were embedded somewhere within the ceiling and the lower layer of the upper floor. The trio of individuals to whom the feet belonged had been thrust straight upward from where they had been standing by whatever it was that leaped to Flinx’s defense whenever he was in imminent danger of extinction. Shattered and powdered fragments of ceiling material sifted downward from the holes in the ceiling, forming little piles of debris directly below the dangling feet.

A moan came from the far side of the room. The collateral force of Flinx’s unbidden defensive response had thrown Subar and Ashile across the floor and into the opposite wall. Thankfully, and unlike those who had absorbed the full force of his involuntary, reflexive, and still-inexplicable reaction, they were not embedded, only bruised. He hurried to them. They were both sore, but unbroken.

“What—what happened?” A dazed Ashile struggled to stand as Flinx worked to unseal her wrist bonds.

Before he could reply, a still-secured Subar shook his head, blinked up at his tight-lipped offworld friend, and muttered, “He happened. That was it, isn’t it?” Looking around the room, he needed a moment to spot the legs dangling from the ceiling like so many fleshy stalactites. “Tnuw! What did you do to them? I remember,” he squinched up his face, “I remember a flash, and being lifted up and thrown. Then pain, and then nothing.”

“I thought I heard a noise.” Rubbing her wrists, the suddenly concerned girl looked around anxiously. “Where’s your pet? They were going to shoot her!”

Having released Subar, Flinx straightened and called out. “Pip!”

The flying snake appeared immediately, hovering unharmed in the hole that had been punched in the wall opposite the main doorway. The hole had been made by the body of the tall alien and more or less conformed to his shape. Standing apart and opposite from Corsk and the two giantesses, who were now decorating the ceiling, the force of whatever had erupted from Flinx had blown him sideways through the wall instead of upward toward the roof.

Pip fluttered back through the new opening. Following her and stepping through the gap, Flinx and his younger companions discovered not only another room but also the abducted individuals they had come for. As they came into view, Subar’s lower jaw dropped. Considering herself at least as hardened by life as he was, Ashile promptly covered her mouth with one hand. Her eyes widened. As Pip landed gently on his left shoulder and coiled her back half around his neck, an expectant Flinx took in the full measure of what was displayed before them. In contrast with his younger companions he was disturbed but not shocked. He had seen and experienced far more than them not only of the galaxy, but also of the disturbing inventiveness that his own species was capable of.

Spread-eagled, piercing eyes now permanently shut, the willowy alien stood embedded upright in the far wall. No emotions flowed from it. Flinx did not need his Talent to tell him that the tormenting visitor from an unknown world would trouble him and his friends no longer. He shifted his attention back to those they had come to liberate. Zezula was there, and Missi, and Sallow Behdul. All three were alive.

But they were not well.

They hung in stasis, not between earth and sky but between ceiling and floor. Or—more properly—between the grids that generated a powerful magnetic field. The field was not strong enough to magnetize and levitate the iron in their bodies. It was, however, more than powerful enough to act forcefully on the hundreds of tiny metal squares that covered the three suspended bodies. Some of the metal squares were pierced with holes, allowing the compressed flesh beneath to bulge through them and form tiny pale bumps. Others were studded with pins, or pyramidal points.

From above, below, and on both sides, the magnetic field pushed or pulled on the hundreds of metal shards, driving them into the naked flesh of the three captives and holding them suspended in midair. If the strength of the field was reduced, the trio would crash to the floor in a shower of harmless metal fragments. The more it was strengthened—the more it was strengthened, the deeper the metal squares would dig into the bodies of the three prisoners. If sufficient power was applied to the field, Flinx determined as he searched for the controls, it could conceivably pull the pieces of metal not only into the flesh of anyone unfortunate enough to be so trapped, but in fact through them. Apply enough power, and every magnetized square of metal would eventually meet its opposite being driven from the opposing direction. The ultimate result would be—untidy.

It was a jail “cell” from which a prisoner could not escape, in which the bars had been broken up into hundreds of pieces that pinned captives between them. Reach down, pull one away from your body, and attempt to fling it, and it would only snap painfully back into place. Exhaustion would give way quickly to resignation. And to more pain.

Despite the metal squares pressing against her lower jaw, chin, and skull, a battered Missi raised her head enough to recognize those who had just entered the room. She was trying to say something, Flinx saw. Tears dripped from her eyes, too nonferrous to attract a metal square. Then she passed out.

Locating the instrument panel, he deactivated the brutal machine as quickly as he could. The jolt that the captives would experience as the field was disengaged and they were dropped to the floor would be nothing compared with what they had undergone. Having recovered from their initial shock at the sight of Subar’s friends, he and Ashile hurried to assist them.

Though most of the metal squares simply clattered to the floor as soon as the magnetic field was turned off, some had to be pulled from the bodies of the former captives, so deeply had they embedded themselves in exposed flesh. While the two youngsters worked on the newly liberated trio, Flinx scoured the cabinets and storage bins in the room until he found their clothes. A refreshment silo mounted in one corner supplied water that the prisoners had doubtless been denied. One by one, care and fluids brought them around. First Sallow Behdul, who could only mumble a few pained words of gratefulness. Then Missi, sobbing. And lastly Zezula, screaming until a comforting Subar held her and rocked some of the terror out of her. Ministering to Missi, Ashile occasionally glanced in their direction. Since she said nothing, only Flinx knew that one other individual in the room besides the former captives was suffering pain.

Which meant that his Talent, now that it was not especially needed, had returned as abruptly and inexplicably as it had previously taken its leave.

With Subar and Ashile’s help, the three hurting but grateful sufferers managed to get dressed. From time to time Flinx approached the crumbling edges of the gap in the wall to look across the outer room in the direction of the main doorway. It remained shut, and he could perceive no immediate threat outside the walls of the building they were in—only staff and employees in other, adjacent structures. These ordinary folk went on about their daily business utterly unaware of the horrors that had been perpetrated in the innocuous structure nearby.

As he turned back to the inner prison, he found Subar confronting him.

“We have to take everybody back to your hotel.” The younger man spoke with a new, self-assured authority that belied his age.

“Now, wait a minute.” Raising his gaze, Flinx indicated the surviving youths he had just risked his own life to rescue. “I said I would help free your friends. Nothing was said about providing accommodation for them.”

Some of Subar’s determination threatened to slip away. His voice turned pleading. “Tlack, Flinx. For that, I thank you from the base of my cer’bell. But right now they have nowhere else to go. I have nowhere else to go.” Turning, he gestured with one hand. “Ash can probably go home safely, but once they find out everybody’s been sprung, whoever picked up Zez and Missi and Behdul and put a price on me will want us back.” He tried not to smile. “Not to mention that they’ll be looking for whoever did this. You didn’t only scrim somebody’s revenge, Flinx. You cost them some cred.”

Flinx tried to shrug it off. “Wouldn’t be the first time.” Bending forward, he put his face close to that of the younger man and lowered his voice. “This may surprise you, Subar, but I already have one or two organizations of some small consequence looking for me. So I’m not worried if some minor Visarian crime syndicate, or whatever, decides to join the pack.” He straightened. “I’m leaving. Leaving Malandere, leaving this world. And based on what I’ve seen and experienced, I don’t see any reason why I should be back.”

Unable to refute the offworlder’s assertions, Subar opted for the simple expedient of ignoring them. “It’d only be for a little while,” he insisted. “Just until we can make arrangements to get ourselves out of the city. I’ve got an older cousin on my mother’s side. He has a good business outside Caralinda. Legitimate agriculture. Caralinda’s a smaller city a respectable distance from Malandere. He could help us make a new start. We could all get new identities, head for Bondescu on the other side of the planet.”

Lifting his gaze, Flinx studied the still-quivering former captives. “What about your parents?”

Subar articulated an unpleasantry. “Zezula doesn’t have any parents. Missi’s are useless. Sallow Behdul’s been on his own for years. And you met mine. I have to contact my cousin, arrangements need to be made, and we have to plan how to slip out of Malandere without being seen. Among other technicalities. But first we need some recoup time, in a safe place.”

From across the room a communit built into a tech panel barked unexpectedly to life. Flinx had no idea who might be on the other end. Only that he had no intention of replying.

“Let’s go.” He raised his voice. “Everybody out of here, now!” Battered and bruised figures began to shamble toward the gap in the wall as long-paralyzed muscles were forced to move again.

“Your hotel?” Subar was gazing up at him, unblinking.

Flinx muttered something under his breath. Curving her neck around so that she could look into his eyes, Pip regarded him questioningly.

“Yes, my hotel.” He hardened his tone deliberately. “But only for a day or two. Only until you can make the necessary arrangements with your cousin. Then I’m away from here, off this miserable world. I’ve got work to do. Important work. As soon as you’ve all recovered enough to slip out of the city on your own I’m done with you, Subar, and also with your intemperate, foolish friends.”

As they exited carefully out onto the serviceway and then headed for the nearest transport terminal, it occurred to Flinx that in making what he intended to be his final statement on the matter he was only repeating something he himself had heard once before, a long time ago. It was not until they were safely in a transport pod and accelerating out of the industrial district that he recalled the circumstances under which he had heard it.

Mother Mastiff had said it to him, in Drallar on Moth, when he and two childhood acquaintances had been caught in the main market stealing from a merchant infamous for his predatory pricing. “I’m done with you!” she had sputtered. “And with your careless, hotheaded friends as well!” Though her tone had been harsh, he had known at the time that she hadn’t really meant what she was saying.

Well, he assured himself, he had meant what he had just told Subar.

What a pity, he thought as the pod zipped smoothly through the teeming, congested cityscape, that the only emotions he could not accurately read were his own.